Wood products are used extensively in both commercial and residential buildings. Wood products are used to make furniture, decorations, and floor coverings. Wood can be finished using wood stains and varnishes or paints. Generally, wood finishing protects and embellishes the surface of the wood product, and is achieved by filling imperfections, sanding, and painting and/or staining. Due to the nature of wood, often times it is necessary to refinish the wood product by reapplying stain.
Unlike paint, getting a good stain match while refinishing, or selecting the right color of stain in the first place, is problematic with stains. Stain is transparent, for the most part, and therefore any variation in the wood can cause variation in the finish. The process, generally, includes selecting a base stain and then adding stain colorants to match the wood product by staining a test wood product, tweaking the color combination, and staining the test wood product again until a match is achieved.
Unfortunately, this process commonly takes place away from the location of the wood product, for example, at the paint store, or in a woodshop. Therefore, other considerations, like lighting, that factor into the stain matching process, may result in an undesirable stain match.